I was at my littler sister's 5th birthday party and I got to talking to this dude. He was blazing and I was puffing on a newport (yes I'm back on it) and he was talking about Obama and how black men now have a dude in the White House and how it's time to cut the BS and get our grinds. I agreed, but that part of the conversation isn't what struck me.

He got talking about his history and how growing up he was the only one out of his boys his never did time and how to him it something that he kinda wanted. He was saying how he had a mother and father who both told him that wasn't the route to go, but seeing all of his friends go through it he felt like he needed it. To him incarceration was a rites of passage.

From their he went on to talk about this non-profit he has that works with you through sports and mentorship. He talked about how he'll take at-risk kids, the worst of the worst and put them in sports. Get them sponsored by people and take them around the country to competitions. It was pretty much what I do but on a much closer level. For example, I work for a private organization that's pretty much statewide. Their certain shit that you just don't do, like take a client to your home. This guy answers his phone at midnight and if a kid is out in the streets and doesn't want to go home for some reason he'll tell them to come through. He'll let them sleep and the next morning he'll go into them and verbally break them down. My job, while we do have a 24 hour on call number, there's only so much we can do, and certain shit we're obligated to do. Like instead of telling them to come to my home, I might find a shelter or if the kid is AWOL call the police.

I got the dude's number because I have a couple clients that might be interested in what he does. And to be honest I think they may respect him and his word more than they do mine. I've come to realize something... I'm still breaking it down in my own mind so if I seem to ramble forgive me, but I'll spill it out:

In the field I work in, which can be considered social work, black males are an endangered specie. Endangered probably isn't the word because that would imply that their had to be a population in the first place. On my team which consist of nine people (five of which are in my position) I am the only male, and the only black male at that. So my entire caseload consists of boys. All of which have never had a father in their lives. Ten months I've been doing this and I've never come across a father. So they pretty much latch on to me. Even when they don't want to or have some hesitations they latch on. And the effect is apparent to my supervisor. Here's where it gets a tricky: a couple of weeks ago I was talking to a kid and he was talking about steeling and jacking and I was challenging him asking him why the fuck he'd think to jack money before he'd think to work for it- all legal shit aside, why? So we get to talking and at a point in the conversation he directs a point towards me and says, "It's not like you're going to get all black on me all of a sudden." I asked him what he meant by that and he couldn't/wouldn't answer the question. I found out from another team member that his older brother has been calling me an uncle Tom, trying to turn his younger (my client) against me. It all of sudden made sense.

Yet another example, when I first started my job I had someone on my team go into some shit about how I don't look black, how I look European or some shit. That one I kinda brushed off and said you watch too much TV- It was my first week on the job and I wasn't going to butt heads.

And tonight, at the party, after I finished my conversation with the guy my uncle asked me how much of it I related to. We were interrupted and didn't get to finish our conversation, but it was an interesting question to me. As I told the dude, I never wanted to go to prison or get arrested. I always said that my dad did enough time for the both of us so you'd never see me in a pair of cuffs. And I can sit here and type out my whole history, but what I've come to realize is although it may be similar to what some of the kids I work with are going through, they don't necessarily see it. Some will say I underestimate the effect that I have on these kids, when I feel like they overestimate. I feel like their our men out their who would have a larger impact. Like MURS put it, "I'm more Coldplay than I'm ICE-T." Even though I never listened to a Coldplay record in my life, I know for a fact that with some of my kids, probably most, if a man who looked more like Snoop Dogg said the same exact shit that I said he would have more credibility. And what it all boils down to is being able to relate. For one, I can relate to a kid who has a mother who suffers from drug addiction. But I was raised by my grandmother, so what I can't relate to is coming home to a mother who has an addiction. I can relate to kid who has had childhood friends die or get locked up. But when I say childhood, I mean like 1-6 years of age, not 16,17,18.

To get to the point while I enjoy my job because of the fact that I feel like I'm making a difference, I think their are others who can make a bigger difference. I think there's some ex-offenders out there who would be able to do my job just right, but because they have records they don't qualify. There are people who go to college and major in social work and make a decent living while there are those who live in communities and do social work because its a family obligation.

It's still unraveling in my mind but I think we can do more to reach at-risk kids. We can start by opening the field up to ex-offenders. That's just one concrete thing I can think of, but there's much more to be done.

Labels: at-risk, growing pains, race, uncle tom, who's going to take the weight, youth